We are still not cooking meat at home. Although we did last night. But that was an exception, and organic, free range lalala hippy la meat. That’s the rule. No cooking meat unless it’s from organic free range lala sources.
But that’s the only time we’ve cooked meat since we started this whole thing.
Recipes of interest:
– Pizzas with various vegetable things on top. Using bases from the baker in Haberfield. Why buy bases? Because they’re from the HABERFIELD BAKERY where the nonnas push you out of the way to get the good stuff.
– Spinach and ricotta caneloni. Still not old. Delicious.
– anything involving sweet potato because it is GOING OFF at the moment. In curries, roasted, every fucking where, because that shit is YUM!
Tonight we had Red Slop And Nice Rice. This is another dish from the old share housing vegan coeliac days. Except it has cheese in it. We used to make this one just so we could eat the nice rice. It’s very easy. And cheap.
Red Slop
– Saute a bunch of mashed up garlic in some olive oil. Don’t you dare use that jarred shit. Add a tbsp ground coriander and a bit less of ground coriander. Saute til the smell really rises.
– Add a can of tomatoes. Stir it all around. If you use fresh tomatoes, cook the slop for much longer – you want this to get really rich.
– Add a can of chickpeas (drained of course). Stir that all around. Use your soaked and cooked dried ones if you’ve got them. If you’re a chickpea nut, use the big fat juicy ones, not the littler ones.
I forgot about the eggplant. It usually has eggplant. Get an eggplant, cut it into matchsticks about a centimetre wide. Saute that in the oil before you do the garlic. Saute til the eggplant is cooked. Then proceed from the first step above. If you’re scared of all the oil this will require (and it will need a bit), grill the eggplant first with a brushing of oil, then slice it and add it after the chickpeas. Eggplant is YUM YUM YUM.
Ok, so now you have red slop. It can simmer for a while on a low heat, getting thicker and richer and yummier.
Put your rice on in the rice cooker. I go the absorption method because I am lazy arse. But it’s just as good with looser grains. Use a long grain rice. We used basmati tonight. Cook it.
When the rice is done, put it on a plate to cool a little, and add a heap of washed, finely sliced fresh spinach to the red slop. Don’t use frozen stuff. Fresh is cheap and good. You only cook the spinach til it’s wilted. Don’t let it get brown.
Meanwhile (or earlier if you’re bored and impatient) put these things in a big bowl:
– some crumpled up fetta. Dodoni is best, unless you’re in a good middle eastern/mediterranean area, then find a good, tasty, bitey one. How much fetta? Well, you want to eventually mix it into the rice, so not too much, but enough to leave little bobbles on every forkful.
– juice of half a lemon. Or perhaps more if you’re cooking for four or more.
– some freshly ground pepper.
– some salt
– a fairly generous amount of finely chopped parsley
-> these amounts depend on the amount of rice you use. Basically, the rice should be flecked with green and bits of fetta and taste lemony but not too sharp or sloppy.
Then you add the rice, just after it’s cooled a bit. This dish is best if the rice is just a bit warmer than room temperature. You don’t really want to wilt the parsley or melt the cheese, but you want the rice’s warmth to set the flavours loose. It’ll suck up the lemon juice and kiss up to the fetta. YUM!
Now you put some nice rice on your place, a big plop of red slop next to it, and perhaps have it with some Greek yoghurt or a yoghurt sauce (olive oil, garlic, sugar, salt, lemon juice).
It’s a ridiculously delicious, simple dish. The most expensive bit is the cheese. Don’t be tempted to buy the cheaper ‘Australian’ fetta, and don’t even look at the low-fat stuff. This dish is so healthy you can manage a bit of full fat cheese.
I can imagine this would be brilliant with some grilled haloumi on top. But you don’t really need that second salty cheese in there.
The nice rice doesn’t really taste good refrigerated – it’s better at room temperature. Now I’m thinking about it, though, I reckon leftover nice rice (ha! as if there’ll be any!) would be awesome stuffed inside a capsicum and roasted. Or inside anything, really. A zucchini! A squash! YUM!